Social Positioning in Teacher-Student Interactions: A Linguistic Ethnographic Investigation

Longji Christopher Gonsum,Cise Cavusoglu

doi:10.5539/ijel.v9n2p332

Abstract

From a social constructionist perspective and using Positioning Theory, this study examined the interactional strategies that interactants use in establishing their social positions in interactions in a registration office. Linguistic ethnographic methods were deployed where naturally occurring interactions of 30 participants in a registration office in a Nigerian university located in North-Central Nigeria were collected through audio-recordings, which added up to 177 minutes in total. Stimulated recall interviews were also conducted with some of the interactants to refute or validate the results of preliminary analyses of their interactional strategies. Micro-discourse analysis was adopted for the analysis of both the ethnographic and discourse data in order to account for the influence of context and other nonverbal behaviours on the interactants&rsquo; choices and the discourse data. The study revealed that sociocultural expectations, knowledge and perceptions significantly influenced the choice of the interactional strategies used for the negotiation and construction of social positions by both the teachers and the students in their interactions. The study also showed the discursive variables of power relations and ages of the interactants as impacting on their use of face acts as deliberate social positioning strategies in the interactions. The study concludes that interactants&rsquo; pragmatic awareness of context is crucial in establishing their negotiated positions in meaningful and cordial interactions.

Highlights

1.1 Interactions as Discursive Negotiation of Social PositionsThe school environment is typically a “social space” (Bourdieu, 1985) where the forces of power relations are brought in direct contact with each other especially during face to face interaction
Little attention has been paid to naturally occurring interaction between the teacher and the student in other spaces such as an office especially in Nigeria, where interactive acts are tied to sociocultural expectations
The use of Positioning Theory (PT) in this study is aimed at extending the frontier of face negotiations as a social-psychological construct that significantly contributes in the ordering of interaction in especially an African context

Summary

Introduction

1.1 Interactions as Discursive Negotiation of Social PositionsThe school environment is typically a “social space” (Bourdieu, 1985) where the forces of power relations are brought in direct contact with each other especially during face to face interaction. 1.1 Interactions as Discursive Negotiation of Social Positions. This article is interested in the use of discursive strategies by Nigerian university teachers and students as a social positioning strategy in naturally occurring interaction in a Registration office of a Nigerian university. The article aims at revealing these discursive strategies as intentional interactive acts that enable the teachers and students to discursively negotiate their social positions in interactive encounters within the imposing power relations of the existing context. Little attention has been paid to naturally occurring interaction between the teacher and the student in other spaces such as an office especially in Nigeria, where interactive acts are tied to sociocultural expectations. The interaction between the teacher and the student in Nigeria occurs within an asymmetrical power relation with divergent sociolinguistic implications. The face to face nature of the interaction meant that interactants have to be strategic in terms of their utterance choices and other nonverbal acts in executing their intended objectives

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Results

Conclusion